Trait hostility: the breadth and specificity of schema effects Max Guyll a, *, Stephanie Madon b a Iowa State University, Institute for Social and Behavioral Research, 2625 North Loop, Suite 500, Ames, IA 50011, USA b Department of Psychology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA Received 19 September 2001; received in revised form 18 December 2001; accepted 13 February 2002 Abstract This study examined the limits of information processing biases associated with trait hostility. Ninety- eight participants processed information to evaluate its descriptiveness of themselves, and of actual antagonists and friends whom they knew well. For both self- and other-referent information, dependent measures included evaluations, response latencies, and memory. Results were consistent with the inter- pretation that trait hostility is associated with cognitive schemata that produce negative biases in the pro- cessing of information about others in general, both antagonists and friends. Specifically, hostile individuals evaluated others more harshly, made favorable judgments more slowly, and recalled less favorable information. By contrast, when evaluating hostile and friendly information for self-descriptiveness, hostile individuals did not exhibit biased processing, suggesting that the operation of hostility-related schemata may be limited to the processing of other-referent information. However, hostile individuals did generally tend to respond more slowly when making self-descriptiveness judgments of both clearly hostile and clearly friendly trait adjectives, perhaps reflecting less clarity in their self-concepts with respect to this dimension of personality. # 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Trait hostility; Information processing; Personality; Schemata 1. Introduction Hostility has been defined as an enduring personality trait that is best indexed by a set of beliefs reflecting the theme that other people are unworthy and likely to be sources of frustration and aggression (Smith, 1992). Characteristics of the hostile person include suspiciousness, cynicism, resentfulness, jealousy, and bitterness (Buss & Perry, 1992). Though hostility correlates positively 0191-8869/03/$ - see front matter # 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S0191-8869(02)00054-5 Personality and Individual Differences 34 (2003) 681–693 www.elsevier.com/locate/paid * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-515-294-7817; fax: +1-515-294-3613. E-mail address: guyll@iastate.edu (M. Guyll).